American Go E-Journal

In the final set of games in the AGA Professional Qualification Tournament on Saturday morning, Andrew Lu defeated Daniel Gourdeau and Jeremy Chiu beat Sarah Yu. Lu took third place and a seeded place in the next pro tournament, Gourdeau was fourth, Chiu is fifth and Yu sixth.

Thanks to the entire E-Journal team for bringing this week-long event to the world. Dennis Wheeler not only did his usual stellar job recording games, cleaning up game records and helping manage the team, but took on new responsibilities for producing our series of game highlight videos, which I think you’ll agree are an excellent addition to our coverage. The game recording team included regular LA volunteers Richard Dolen and Joe Cepiel, with the welcome addition of Greg Kulevich and Esther Jun, who both did a terrific job. The commentary team included Myungwan Kim 9P, Tyler Oyakawa 6d, Norman Tsai7d and I-han Lui 7d, who all did excellent work drawing out key lessons for our series of brief videos. Andrew Jackson provided tech support for the videos and Steve Colburn kept the tournament page and crosstab updated. Thanks to Akane Negishi and her team of admins at KGS for their support, as always.

Many thanks as well to the staff of the Hotel Normandie, its architect and go enthusiast Jingbo Lou and the folks at Cassell’s who generously provided not only a calm and elegant venue but all the help we needed and water and coffee when we were thirsty.

Special thanks to Tournament Director Jeff Shaevel for ensuring the event’s smooth operation throughout the week — as he has each year — and a very special thanks to AGA president Andy Okun, who not only coordinated the entire event with Myungwan Kim 9P, but was always there taking care of the myriad details, both tiny and big, to make the event a success, including assuming game recording duties when needed.

Of course, the biggest thanks goes to the eight players who gave it their all this week — Eric Lui 7d, Ben Lockhart 7d (who also participated in a video commentary), Aaron Ye 7d, Andrew Lu 7d, Daniel Gourdeau 6d, Jeremy Chiu 6d, Sarah Yu 6d, and Manuel Velasco 5d — they are all a credit to the game and an inspiration to go players of all levels.

Finally, if you’re interested in being on the E-Journal team at future events — it’s a lot of fun and a great way to improve your game — send us an email at journal@usgo.org.– Chris Garlock, Managing Editor, American Go E-Journal; photo by Garlock